Collura's Halloween Fair Lawn tradition continues in Glen Rock

The statue of fallen Fair Lawn Police Officer Mary Ann Collura honoring her memory in front of borough hall shows her talking to children dressed in costume for Halloween.

Whether the most popular Halloween tradition returns to Glen Rock this year or next, it will be illuminated – not by power crews, but by the generosity of resident Todd Mastrovitch and the memory of a fallen public servant from a neighboring town.

In 1999, Fair Lawn Police Officer Mary Ann Collura, concerned about the safety of her town's nighttime trick-or-treaters, suggested to a supervisor that elementary school children be provided with glow sticks to make them more obvious to motorists. At her persistent urging, the borough department went on to secure funding for the effort.

Five years later, the community within and beyond Fair Lawn was stunned when Collura, 43, was shot and killed in the line of duty following the pursuit of a suspect she was trying to arrest. In the aftermath of the tragedy and in her memory, then Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney made the program a county-wide and funded the new tradition.

It remained so until this year, when county budget cuts left local towns to fund the program locally or abandon it, according to Glen Rock Police and Juvenile/D.A.R.E. Officer Matthew Stanislao.

With the latter prospect looming in Glen Rock, Mastrovitch – an emergency room pediatric physician and parent of a borough elementary school student – stepped up.

"Many towns including Glen Rock were unable to allocate the funds for the program with such short notice, and it appeared that it would not happen here this year," Stanislao said. "Then we were given a donation by (one) parent, who shouldered the cost for the entire Glen Rock School District to have this program."

Although the donor sought no publicity, Stanislao said it was the view of Glen Rock Police Chief Frederick Stahman – a friend of the late Collura – that the Mastrovitch's gesture should be recognized.

Similarly in 1999, Collura reportedly had no idea that she would be visibly connected to the safety suggestion.

In a an article following her death, Fair Lawn Police Sgt. Richard E. Schultz, who had helped secure the funding at her repeated urging, was quoted as saying, "Mary Ann did not realize that I gave her full credit for coming up with the idea … When the time came to take a public relations photo to launch the program, I had to order her to be in it."

According to Schultz, without the funding from the county Police Chief Erik Rose decided to purchase the glow sticks this year to make sure the program could continue in Fair Lawn.

At the height of the program's county-wide funding, some 70,000 glow sticks were distributed prior to Halloween to students by D.A.R.E. officers. The ongoing association of Collura and the program is symbolized by a statue at the Fair Lawn Municipal Building depicting her handing out glow sticks.

Fair Lawn's first female police officer, Collura served in the department for 18 years, as a firearms officer and armorer and as a delegate to the New Jersey Policemen's Benevolent Association. She received the Hackensack University Medical Center EMS Excellence Award for saving a life with a defibrillator, in addition to a number of commendations from the community, according to a Fair Lawn Police Department's webpage in her memory.